


Going Back

by Thephris_Mage



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, keith and lance have emotions and stuff, klance, uhh idk how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 14:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thephris_Mage/pseuds/Thephris_Mage
Summary: He stared up at Lance, quirking an eyebrow up in silent challenge. The blue eyes bored into him, alight with indignant determination, ready for a fight. “Oh boy,” said Hunk, putting his hands up in defeat. “Keith, buddy, you really did it now. I’m gonna step out of this one.”Lance and Keith have a disagreement about Keith’s post-war plans.





	Going Back

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so I'm just getting this out there before S6 drops because I wrote it a long time ago (I'm not even sure when?) and just want to publish it before yet another season passes me by. 
> 
> I think this takes place somewhere between seasons 3 and 4? I honestly don't know, let's just say it's whenever you want it to be. Enjoy!

Keith was a child of the universe. Or perhaps its favorite victim, he had never been quite sure which.

He was always alone, moving forward and trying his best to settle in to somewhere new. As a child it had been jarring, moving from one foster family to the next, never feeling like he quite fit, never feeling like he was given the time to learn how. The discomfort of his constantly changing surroundings chafed like an ill-fitting shirt that he would never grow into.

As he got older, he began to get used to the chaos, started to adapt quicker and quicker each time – and then Shiro disappeared. Like a slap in the face from the universe, this time Keith was the one to stay behind, and yet the world moved on without him just the same. Once again, he was shifted from something newly comfortable to something confusing and unpredictable. And as always, he was hopelessly, desperately alone.

Then he got kicked out of school. And then he lived in the desert. And then they discovered Voltron, and he became a paladin. And then he found out he was Galra. And then Shiro disappeared again. And then he became a leader. And then, and then, and then. The universe never ceased to test him, giving him things and taking them away just as quickly. Wishing he could have stayed, wondering what might have been, missing the old places and people; these things were only a waste of energy that left him unprepared to adapt to whatever his new life would be. He knew better than to hold on to the past.

Which is why, in casual conversation one night, he mentioned that he didn’t know where he was going to go after the war was over (“if it’s ever over,” he added) but he thought he might go with the Blade of Marmora, wherever they planned on going.

“What– what do you mean?” Lance sputtered, abruptly ending his conversation with Hunk to turn around and glare accusingly at Keith. “Where are you going? With who?”

“I’m talking about after the war, Lance,” Keith said flatly, “And I said I would go with the Blade of Marmora, probably. Or maybe somewhere else. I don’t know yet. Why, what’s the problem?”

“The problem?” said Lance defensively, jumping up from his seat. “What’s your problem? What’s wrong with Earth, huh?”

“Nothing is wrong with Earth,” replied Keith, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

Lance’s only response was to wave his arms dramatically and make a frustrated sound into the air. Keith crossed his arms in front of his chest, settling into his habitual defensive position, and waited for whatever Lance’s next (presumably ridiculous) statement would be.

It was true that he didn’t have any problems with the Earth. He had liked living there. It was a comfortable enough place. He had once believed that if he couldn’t have a real home, at the very least he could consider Earth to be his home. But as it turned out, Earth was just another foster home on a much larger scale. It was a place where he had learned how to adapt and what to expect, where he was slowly learning to fit in, and where (as he had since discovered) perhaps he hadn’t really belonged in the first place. And once again, he was wrenched away without a second thought by an uncaring universe.

Yes the Earth was nice, but to go back to it? He’d never considered it, not seriously. It was as firmly in the past as his many childhood homes, or his shack in the desert. Gone. Behind him. No point in looking back.

He stared up at Lance, quirking an eyebrow up in silent challenge. The blue eyes bored into him, alight with indignant determination, ready for a fight.

“Oh boy,” said Hunk, putting his hands up in defeat. “Keith, buddy, you really did it now. I’m gonna step out of this one.”

“I think I’ll join you,” said Pidge conversationally, getting up from her seat. “I actually wanted to show you the progress of that project we were working on last week…” Their voices faded away as they walked from the room together.

Lance met Keith’s eyes but said nothing. The room became silent, the seconds passing and the tension building. Their standoff, rather than escalating as it normally would, broke abruptly (and to Keith’s surprise) as Lance fell back into his seat, looking defeated.

“Man,” said Lance, stretching out his long limbs in obviously feigned casualness. “Every time I think I have you figured out, I’m totally wrong.” He looked at Keith with a suddenly serious expression, casting that penetrating blue gaze upon him in such a way that Keith felt compelled to give him a decent response.

“Uhhh… Sorry.” He had done his best, but Lance just rolled his eyes at him.

“Look, you don’t need to– I mean, all I’m saying is…” He shook his head. “Okay,” he said, gathering himself, “why do you not want to go back to Earth?”

“It’s not that I don’t!” Keith objected. “It’s just, well…” he trailed off, at a loss for words.

“It’s just well what?”

“Well, I guess I don’t really know.”

“You don’t know?” Lance shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t you– Don’t you have something to go back for?”

Keith looked away, not wanting Lance to see the embarrassment he was sure was making its way into his expression.

“Oh,” he heard Lance say, quietly, as if to himself. Still aiming his gaze elsewhere, positive his face was glowing red, Keith struggled against his need to defend his position. He lost.

In the only way he understood it, in the plainest words he had, he said, “Everything that’s important to me is in space right now, okay? And sure, there are plenty of things about Earth that I miss, and I guess I would go back, but why should I go back to a place that… that… that I already left?!”

Lance stared at him uncomprehendingly for a second or two before something seemed to click and he shot back, “Well why not? Did you choose to leave? No. None of us did.”

“Did I– Did I choose? What does that have to do with anything?” asked Keith scathingly.

“It has to do with– with EVERYTHING!” Lance burst out. “Of course your choices matter, what are you talking about? You’re a paladin of Voltron! Your decisions change the fate of the whole universe! You think they don’t matter when it comes to you? You think you can’t make one for yourself?”

Keith was silent, thinking furiously. Lance only looked at him, an odd expression settling in his eyes.

“Look, the minute we’re not obligated to fight a giant scary war that only we can fight, we can do anything we want. We can go wherever, whenever. I mean, I want to go home to Earth, of course, but you think I don’t want to explore what’s out there? There’s so much to see, I mean, we could could cross the universe to visit some specific planet, or go to a festival, or to see a cool rock formation, or, I don’t know! Anything! I mean, I’m just throwing things out there – what I’m trying to say is that the whole universe will be our oyster!”

“Our what?”

“Our – seriously, dude? – Look, nevermind. The point is, you can do whatever you want. And you can always choose to go back somewhere if you want to.” He suddenly got flustered “That is, if you want to go back. To Earth, or wherever. I know you said all your important things are here in space, so–“

“They wouldn’t be.”

“Wait, huh?”

“If you were on Earth, then at least one of the important things would be there. And you know, I think that’s something that would motivate me to go back. So if I could, then maybe…” Keith lost his train of thought after catching a glimpse of Lance’s face, which had gone slack.

Then what he had said caught up with him, and he crushed his face into his hands, as the heat of embarrassment crawled up to his ears. 

“Wait,” he choked out, “I meant… I meant that–“

“You’d go back if I was there?” supplied Lance, seeming just as embarrassed as Keith.

“I–“

“You’d go back to Earth if I was there?”

“I–“

“Damn it Keith, say something!”

“I would! I would go back!” It poured forth from Keith like it had been waiting there for years. He couldn’t bring himself to watch his words anymore, not with this many thoughts screaming at him even as they shifted and changed in his head.

“I never thought about going back anywhere, I couldn’t think about it. I never had a choice to stay or to go back or to keep anything. I was never able to keep the– to keep my people that I liked. I always had to say goodbye. And just move on. It’s the only thing that has ever seemed normal to me, and I guess I’ve just kept on thinking that things have to be like that. And I’m just realizing now that they don’t. I can… I can go back. I don’t have to let go of things forever.”

“Keith.”

Keith looked up, face flushed, holding back any visible emotion with the most stoic face he could manage, and was taken aback by the sight of Lance’s shiny, tear-filled eyes, and his puffy, red and snotty nose. Keith had never seen him in such an unflattering state; even those times when Lance was injured he seemed more put together than he did now. He was an obvious mess, and Keith was, for some odd reason, utterly charmed by it. He found himself staring stupidly at Lance, unable to respond.

“Keith, I promise you that no matter what, for as long as I’m alive, you’ll never have to say goodbye to me. You’ll never have to leave me, or anybody, behind if you don’t want to. I promise.” He shook his hands for emphasis, both of which were clasped around Keith’s own.

Huh, thought Keith vaguely, still staring in awe at Lance, who was currently the most beautiful person Keith had ever seen. Did I hold his hand or did he hold mine? When did that happen? Unaware of Keith’s stupor, Lance was still speaking.

“When I go back to Earth, I’m taking you with me and you’re gonna stay with my family, and see my beach and eat garlic knots with me, and–” His rambling was interrupted by the sudden, warm press of Keith’s mouth. His eyes widened in shock, but whatever he had to say about garlic knots was evidently not too important, as he quickly melted into the kiss.

It was a snotty one, unsurprisingly. But neither of them seemed to notice or care. They were lost to the kiss, and everything outside each other seemed at that moment singularly unimportant. Even when Coran wandered in, caught sight of them, said “Oops, would you look at the time!” and dashed off, the two didn’t move an inch. Even when their kiss broke apart, they stayed there, sitting close, foreheads resting together and eyes locked.

“I’m gonna hold you to that promise,” Keith murmured. “Earth. The beach and the garlic knots and everything.”

“No problem, mullet,” said Lance, and to Keith’s bemused frustration the word “mullet” now sounded like an endearment. “Just, kiss me again?”

So Keith did.

 

~Epilogue~

 

“Ah, that was fun,” said Keith, settling himself into the pilot’s seat of their personal pod.

“Really? You had fun?” snarked Lance, plopping down in the copilot’s seat and resting his feet on the dashboard. “The great Keith himself? Paladin, official Blade of Marmora, war hero and ninja extraordinaire, enjoying a common festival? I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“Yeah alright Lance, would you knock it off already? You’ve been at that joke all day.” He casually swiped Lance’s long legs off the dashboard; Lance readjusted himself automatically, this being their usual routine.

“Yeah I know. I’m only doing it to make you smile. And also because I had to force you to come here, you big sourpuss.”

“Ignoring that last comment, and I was not smiling.”

“Yes you were.”

“…Only a little. Anyway, where to now?” He turned to the console and began to dial around aimlessly on the galaxy map that was already up.

“You remember where, Keith! To Earth! My family will be expecting us, and my sister–“

“That’s right, Marisol is getting married in less than a phoeb. I can’t believe she grew up so fast.” Keith tapped away at the console, setting new coordinates.

“You sound like an old fart.”

“We’re basically the same age, so you’re calling yourself a fart,” Keith replied without looking up. He paused what he was doing and glanced at Lance, cracking a smile, “You old fart.”

“Ha, ha,” said Lance, trying to go for sarcastic but obviously charmed.

“Okay and let’s see here, after the wedding…” said Keith, now turning to study a separate screen, which displayed a map of what looked like most of the universe, along with different points highlighted with blue, red or purple. “Lance, what’s this?”

“That’s Okojat! I wanted to go there to see–“

“The fancy rocks, right?” Keith interjected with an unsubtle snicker.

“The rock balancers of the Okoja really aren’t anything to knock, Keith. They’re impressive.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Oh, you’ll believe it. Hunk thought they were amazing and I trust his judgment.”

“Hunk was also the guardian spirit of the land for a good fifteen years, so…”

“Yeah, okay. Just you wait and see. Besides, we went to your jousting thing, and that was practically across the whole universe!”

“I thought you liked the jousting!”

“I did. And you’ll like the rocks,” said Lance confidently. “Hey, are the coordinates in yet? It’s Earth, I know you know the location points by heart.”

“They’re already in, you nag,” said Keith affectionately. “We’re taking off right…” he pulled a small lever, and the engine hummed to life, “now.” He smiled at his partner, who was again trying to rest his long legs on the dashboard while Keith wasn’t looking.

“Next stop, home.”


End file.
